Fidelity
by LegalBlonde
Summary: Five years later, Sydney and Vaughn are just beginning to learn about betrayal…and trust. SV, post-Telling.
1. One

Title: "Fidelity"

Author: LegalBlonde

Email: legalblonde2005@yahoo.com

Rating:  PG-13, for language.

Ship: S/V

Genre: Romance, angst, futurefic

Archive: CM, anyone else ask first so I can go visit!

Spoilers:  "The Telling"

Summary:  Five years later, Sydney and Vaughn are just beginning to learn about betrayal…and trust.

AN:  This is five years post-Telling, so three years after the two-year gap.  Special thanks to carrielynn, my very own Superbeta, and to CIAchick711, who's given me valuable advice.

******

You learn how to sense when someone's there.  It's the half-heard footstep and the smell of hot plastic and gunpowder and the stronger-than-usual feeling of eyes boring into your back.  Then it's the gagging in your throat and the bile in your stomach and the sudden fear of oh-no-someone's-here.

This time it's different.  It's the fall of the step, landing lightly on the edge and rolling onto the ball of the foot before she dips her heel, ever so slightly, to make the lightest possible impress on the dusty floor. It's the smell of super-stiff hair gel she uses on missions on the supposedly unscented lotion she rubs into her hands and the sound of brown hair brushing shoulders, and then it's not the sense of oh-no-someone's-here, it's-oh-shit-she's-here, so you know exactly what you will find as you bring the Beretta around slowly to face the corner.

"Put the gun down, Vaughn."

She's wearing solid black and camo-green and has one gun strapped to her waist and one more at the ankle.  She speaks simply, like "it's three-fifteen" or "I'm in a meeting until six" or "you've got mustard on your sleeve", except those are expressions from a different time a thousand miles away and you refuse to think about that.  

You don't put down the gun.

"Give me the hard drive, Sydney."  You choke up on the grip, just for effect.  

"You're not going to shoot me."  She says this flatly, with just enough condescension to remind you of the teacher she should have been and just enough disdain to remind you of the excellent spy she is.  Gun or no gun, you both know who's in control of this little scene.  

 "No, Sydney, you _think_ I'm not going to shoot you."  

Nonplussed, she slides a silvery memory stick out of the computer bank and into a pocket on her camo-green vest.  

"Just put the gun down."  From the sound of it, she's inheriting her father's muted range of expressions.  That, or she's just trying to piss you off.  

"You don't have to do this.  It doesn't have to be this way."  The lines sound something from a cheesy cop movie even before they're out of your mouth, but they're the best you can come up with when Sydney Bristow is staring you down.  Not the first time you've had this problem.  

"I don't have to do what?"

"This.  This – work.  Whatever it you want to call it.  I know this isn't what you want."

This garners the first emotion you've seen from her, a harsh little laugh like an empty cough and a quick flick of the dark hair.  

"Don't tell me what I want, Michael.  You're hardly an expert on that."  

The Michael is just there to unnerve you; you know this because it works so well.

"Give me the memory stick and come back with me.  We can -- arrange immunity; we can get you a deal.  You can work for the CIA."

"We tried that once, remember?"

You shake your head, keeping the gun steady by some miracle of self-control and muscle fatigue.  "That was different.  It was the wrong time -- you'd just come back and everything was different.  Nobody was ready for that yet."

The corners of her mouth flick up in a bitter little smile.  "Every_one_ was different; not every_thing_.  I'm sorry you don't like the way it's turned out -- but we don't get a vote on these things."

That last line was measured for impact, and it hits, right on the sternum, burning and bruising like a bullet in Kevlar.  You shake your head again.

"This is not you.  This is not the Sydney Bristow who would do anything to protect the people she loved, who always wanted to work for the good guys.  The woman who came in to see me in that red wig with the Tolstoy-long story she wanted to tell me -- this isn't her."

"No.  She grew up."

"Syd--"

"There aren't good guys and bad guys.  There are people.  People will love you or people will betray you."

"And Irina Derevko won't betray you?"  You try to keep the venom out of your voice, but it comes naturally, like an extra syllable in that name.

"She hasn't in five years."

"And do you really agree with--"

"Could you trust me, Vaughn?  After I've left everything behind, after I've worked for the one person you truly hate, could you ever trust me again?"

"The CIA would be willing to make you a deal -- in light of your past service, they would agree to bring you back in."  

You haven't answered the important question, and you know it as well as she does.  Something darkens her eyes (are they always darker, now?) and she turns toward the door.

"She left me."  You blurt this out without thinking, as unguarded as you always were around her, groping for any way to keep her here.  You plunge ahead, groping for an explanation and an answer and wherever it is that you stashed your dignity.  "This guy named Brad Tilden -- he's a stock broker.  He works normal hours and can talk about his job in public and doesn't carry automatic weapons."  _or torches for old girlfriends_, you add silently.  

She pauses for just a moment, looking back over her shoulder.  

"I'm sorry." 

Her eyes lighten and her voice softens and for a moment you believe her, before you remember you're not supposed to do that anymore.

Then she's gone.


	2. Two

******  
  


You're back at the desk on Monday, starched collar and straightbacked chair and a perfectly even expression.  You flip through a stack of files and ignore a stack of pink phone-message slips, at least after you flick through them to make certain there are no phone calls from your wife (_ex_-wife) or anyone named Brad.  You hate the name Brad.  

A thought tugs at your conscience, that nagging voice in your head that wonders if her infidelities were truly worse than yours; if seven-hour "business meetings" and quickies in the boardroom and furtive dinners in tiny suburbs are any worse than bold-faced lies in daytime, public promises to have and hold when you knew you couldn't keep them, pledges to love when you still weren't ready.  

But you shut this voice off, like you always do, and remember that she lives in a lovely starter-mansion with Brad the Wonderful and that when you get home at night you have to push Donovan off the couch before you can collapse there for a few hours sleep.  

You finish with the message slips and rifle through the day's mail, not looking for anything in particular and just hoping nothing will disturb the comfortable, pleasantly uneventful rhythm that you like to call Monday.  One envelope has no return address, a detail that might disturb you if this place weren't equipped with every sort of scanner known to man.  You slit the bulky envelope with the marble-handled letter opener your wife gave you for your birthday (that should have been your first clue) and slide the contents onto your desk.

It's a computer memory stick.

******

She finds you at your Tuesday night movie, and you hate her for this.  It's the one place you have to yourself, the one time you're not being called to fly halfway across the world to recover yet another computer disk or Rambaldi gizmo and the only time you're not putting up with kind smiles and gentle eyes and "so how are you doing?" and "hey, let's go for a beer.  You okay?"  and "why don't we catch a hockey game -- are you up to it?" all the other pseudo-kind things that don't help nearly as much as watching Brando in _The Godfather._  So every Tuesday, you settle in with greasy popcorn and an oversize soda and watch some stereotypical guy movie while you try to forget the woman you left and the one who left you.

But tonight, the woman you left is sitting behind you.  She settles in just after the wedding scene and takes a seat one row behind you and two seats over.  You catch the whiff of her hand lotion and those rolling, feather-light steps and nearly choke on a popcorn kernel.  You wipe butter-greased fingers on your jeans, hiding your sloppy appearance like a guilty teenager, because she's used to seeing you dressed and pressed, even when she was used to seeing you without much at all.  

She waits to speak for a few scenes, when a burst of action full of bullets and screams masks her voice, hiding your conversation from the few people in the theater.  

"You may have some incorrect information."  

You ignore her bait.  She's invaded your privacy, and you're not giving her what she wants.  At least, not right away.

"Thanks for the hard drive."  

You can almost hear the hair flick over her shoulder.  "I don't know what you mean."

The denial is flat, unbelievable.  She doesn't expect you to believe her, just wants you to know how the game goes.  She's not ready to admit she's playing.   She gives you just enough time for this to sink in, then you both keep quiet, a lull in the action leaving the theater too quiet even for your hushed voices.  

Another few minutes, another burst of gunfire, and she leans ever so slightly forward.  

"You may have some incorrect information."

"You said that."

"You're in possession of a list of names that Sloane altered before copying the files.  All of the European contacts have been replaced with shell accounts that will trace back to Sloane himself.  Don't attempt to use them."

"Is the rest of the list clean?"

"As far as we know."

You have a hundred questions to ask her, most of all why you should trust her and what should make you think she's not just using you to vet the other half of the list.  But there's another burst of gunfire onscreen and another light whoosh of air behind you and then you know she's gone.  Again.


	3. Three

Two can play at this game.  

She has a contact in Marseilles and you have his number.  At least, his location.  So you call ahead and make use of your flawless French and a back-channel slush fund and arrange for a prime table.  Right next to hers.  

You arrive early and wear solid black, dark suit with a silk shirt open at the collar.  You wear your ring, and look very much like what you told the maitre d' that you were: an impatient businessman who prefers anonymity and whose equally impatient businesswife is still at her board meeting.  You tap your fingers on the polished table and peruse the wine list and let the light glint off the wedding ring you've already quit wearing.  But you want to throw her off, (the ostensible reason) and (the deeper reason you try not to think about too clearly) you want to remind her that you were the one who was faithful, you helped pack her bags and wrap the good china (the pattern you hated anyway) in old newspapers until your fingers were black and your shirt was smudged and the large, gleaming sedan pulled up at the curb.  (Only the best for Brad's new girlfriend.)  Because you want her to know these things without having to tell her.  Because you won't let her lecture you about fidelity.

The heel of her designer shoe slips, just a little, when she spots you; you recognize the miss in the rhythmic click-clock of her heels across the floor.  You allow yourself a small smile, lips curling up lopsided, then hide it behind the wine list as she takes a seat behind your back.  

"Why are you here?"  

She makes no effort to hide the annoyance in her voice.  Or the cleavage in her dress.  

"That's a lovely outfit.  Do you dress that way for all your terrorists, or just the special ones?"

"Funny, Michael.  Are you here for surveillance or just to piss me off?"

"Neither.  I'm here to make a deal."

"Not interested."  She raises one hand, just a flick of her wrist, to signal the waiter.  He returns to the wine list.  

"I've worked out an immunity agreement."

"You didn't hear me the first time?"

"I didn't believe you the first time."

This, at least, shuts her up.  You allow yourself another small smile.  It's nice to be in control.  Not something you're used to where she's concerned.

The two of you sip fine wine back to back and you hear, rather than see, her hand drawing idle circles on the table.  The waiter inquires after your wife and you like to pretend that her shoulders tense when she hears this, so you murmur a little louder than necessary that the board meeting must be running late.  

The waiter inquires after Sydney's companion, and she assures him that he will be along shortly, but you can hear the edge in her voice, a flat, slightly brittle tone that only someone who knows her well might pick up.  You wait until the waiter's gone to drop your little bombshell.

"Maurnet's not coming."

Her back snaps taut against the wooden seat and her diamond bracelet clatters against the tabletop.

"Two of our agents picked him up an hour ago.  You know, he was holding a small object we believe to be a Rambaldi artifact.  Agent Weiss says hi, by the way."

Her voice is low, even, but you know from the way she bites off her words that her jaw is clenched.  

"And are you here to try and apprehend me?"

"I told you, Sydney, I'm here to offer you a deal."

"No deal, Vaughn."  She's up from the table before she finishes the comment, one graceful movement that sweeps the fluttering hem of her skirt around her legs.  You'd almost forgotten the way she does that.  She never looks back at you, heels click-clocking straight to the door, pausing only momentarily to speak with the maitre d', waving one hand in your direction.

She stuck you with the check.


	4. Four

-----------

That immunity agreement was a bitch to work out -- but you're glad she's not biting. She needs time, no, you need time, to bring her in, to do it right, to make certain beyond any doubt that this time it sticks.  

You tell yourself this as you're crouching behind a water-heater in a subbasement in London, trying to keep your mind off the muscle cramps.  You try to focus on keeping still, on keeping one finger on the trigger and one finger on the safety, the way you always have.  You wonder what would happen if you let off the safety once or twice -- or better yet, if you let off the trigger.

She's not coming.  You've crouched in a damp corner behind a water heater that's hotter than hell and against a wall damp with some murky liquid that's slowly seeping through your turtleneck, and it's taken an hour in this attractive condition to figure it out.  She's not coming.  

Five hours wading through meaningless Echelon data, three aspirin to get you through, two beers, and one entirely sleepless night spent stringing two sentences of code together all to figure out that Sydney A. Bristow ("The Woman") was supposed to make a drop in this very basement half an hour ago.  

And she's not coming.  

You let your aching head rock back against the grimy wall, algae-smelling liquid notwithstanding.  You let your eyes snap shut, just for a moment, an extended blink.  You imagine she walks through the door with a whoosh of dry air and a Sig in her hands and she spots you behind the heater, without either of you needing to raise the gun, and she says the words you keep running through your head, aching to hear:  _Vaughn, I want back in._

Your eyes snap open when you hear a sound, but it's only a cockroach shuffling quietly through a copy of yesterday's newspaper discarded beside your feet.  The muscles in your shoulders tense:  you're not supposed to lose focus like this.  

You're also not supposed to fantasize about internationally wanted criminals, but that's another story.  

Wait…yesterday's newspaper?  You bend down slowly, back sliding through the strange dampness on the wall, one hand reaching down for the paper at your feet while the other rests lightly against the trigger.  You grasp the edge of the paper between two fingers, cockroach scurrying and finally dropping to the ground as you lift the paper to waist height.  It seems ordinary enough, but you notice something -- pencil-marks, light like shadows, so faint you think they are shadows at first. One under the word four and one under the word be -- you flip slowly (difficult to accomplish with one hand) to page 4B.  No lines, no shadows, but full of ads for movie theaters.  

One of them is showing _The Godfather._

------

She's sitting in the grimy projector room, perched on the stool with one leg resting on its rungs, knee jutting out before her, and balanced on that knee, a tub of extra-buttery popcorn.  She's laid her forearm across the top of the tub, and she's still holding her gun.  

"Popcorn?"

"No, thanks."  You run one hand against your side, reflexively, subconsciously brushing off the buttery popcorn grease that's not there and the light glaze of perspiration that is.  Your palm bumps the barrel of the Beretta tucked in your belt, but you don't pull it out.  Not yet.  

"So now you're running movie projectors?"

She inclines her head toward a crumpled heap in the corner.  Your stomach does one of those nauseous clenches you've been having so many of lately.  Mostly around her.

"It was only a stun."

You clench your jaw, unsure whether you can believe her.  Then you do what you've always done best in tense moments with Sydney.  Change the subject.

"So I'm guessing you called me here to accept my deal."

The corners of her mouth flick up, then back down.  _Funny joke, Michael._

You shouldn't be able to read her like that.

"I would, but I'm really not all that interested in working with Mr. Sark again."

Oh, so here it is.  Her little game.  Make you take the blame for every wrong step the CIA has made in the last five years.  Make you squirm.  Make herself feel better about her choices.  

But you'd rather take the blame for your employer's mistakes than for your own.    

"We keep Agent Sark under strict surveillance. His release is conditional on his good behavior.  Much like Derevko's once was."

Served and returned.  How do you like that, Bristow?

"And you see how well that worked out."

"She cost us a good agent."

"Two."  The edge is back, the bitterness in her voice, along with a dark flicker in her eyes.  You glance at the floor, because Jack is not a subject you know how to think about.

"He -- he changed, during those two years."

"So I'm told."  

"He took it hard, Sydney.  When you left."  _We all did._

"I didn't leave, Michael.  I was taken.  But everyone seems ready to place all the blame on my shoulders."  _Except my mother_ -- the unspoken coda to that sentence.

"Have you heard from him?"  You don't know why you ask the question, it's like something you would ask a friend -- a close one.  Perhaps it's one more way she manages to put you off-guard.  Perhaps it's because you know something about losing fathers.

Her perfectly shaped eyebrows arch.

"You'd like that?  If I would give tips to the CIA.  Then you could have the whole family in custody."

"I wasn't fishing for intel.  I was asking about you."  You wonder if she's really that far gone -- if she doesn't know there's a difference.

"You wouldn't bring my father in?  If you got the chance?"

"I haven't brought his daughter in."

She smiles a little, a real smile with her lips curling up a bit, not the bitter little grins you've been getting.

"Even though he could lead us to Sloane.  Tell me you don't want that to happen."

She shrugs, a small gesture, just a twitch of the shoulders.  "You'd just end up hiring him.  Maybe he could team up with Will.  Work with Dixon and Sark."

"Agent -- Dixon -- has done an excellent job of keeping Agent Sark in line.  Look, I don't like him either -- you think I like working with a man who almost killed me?  Do you think Will does?  He's valuable, Sydney.  He's provided the Agency with good information, and it's not my call to make."

"And we both know how much you like to follow protocol."

_Nice shot, Sydney._  Your hand is perspiring again and you're thinking maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to draw that Beretta after all.  It's not like she isn't doing the exact same thing.

But she doesn't give you the chance.  

"You have to answer my question."

"What question?"

"Could you ever trust me?"  

You knew it was coming, but that doesn't make it any easier, doesn't ease the way you feel like you've been shot in the sternum, burning and bruised.  You swallow, Adam's apple bobbing up and down against the suddenly too-tight turtleneck, and her brown eyes are locked on yours.  

She shakes her head, slowly, drawing the gun back toward her as she does.  She slides it back in the hip holster, lifting the popcorn from her knee as she slides off the stool.  She breezes past you, leaving you to look at her back as she fires her parting shot.  

"I'll never accept a deal that would force me to turn in parents."  

The flimsy door creaks shut behind her, and you're left in the dingy little room that smells of beer and over-buttered popcorn.  You're so busy feeling deflated (do you always feel this way when she leaves?) that it takes a moment for her words to process, for you to realize what she was really telling you.  Then your collar constricts and your heart pounds and you have to slide both sweaty palms against the rough fabric of your pants.

She told you she would accept a deal.


	5. Five

******  
You can't sleep.  
  
You drink two cups of coffee before you leave the house and three more after you get to work and you've started keeping a packet of herbal energy something-or-another in your right-hand desk drawer. The tablets are green and large and smell vaguely like alfalfa, and though you don't know exactly what's in them, you're reasonably certain it will kill you before you hit forty. But your chances of hitting forty have been pretty low since you got involved with the Bristows, and when you look at it that way, death by multivitamin doesn't seem like such a bad idea.   
  
Either way, you can't sleep.   
  
You can name at least six kinds of insomnia: grief, anticipation, shock, excitement, overthinking, and worry. But this isn't the I'll-lose-my-job insomnia or the I'm-getting-married insomnia or even the Sydney's-on-a-mission insomnia, (although you claim to have forgotten that kind) it's genuine Bristow-induced thinking insomnia. Probably the worst kind.  
  
You can't stop thinking about her question. You hear her voice when you start to slip off to sleep, the cool chill in it she used to reserve for her enemies and now uses for you. You see the cool, flat darkness of her brown eyes and the way she stares at you: unblinking, jaw set, flicking dark hair over her straight shoulders.   
  
"Can you trust me?"   
  
Sometimes you hear her voice hard, and flat, the way she said it. Sometimes you hear it softening, with a tremor, as if she's about to cry. Other times you hear it in a whisper, the way she used to speak, in your ear late at night. And whenever you hear it, you have to answer. Because this is Sydney, and you've never mastered the art of not sacrificing for her. After all, it's only sleep.   
  
And then, suddenly, you have the answer. Not in meticulous reasoning in the early evening or sleep-addled dreaming at three a.m. or even in the shower, where you usually get your best ideas, but one morning in front of the mirror as you're straightening your tie and trying not to spill your first cup of coffee on your new starched oxford. It pops into your head unbidden, like her voice, and it slams you back into the wall and creases your forehead and pounds your heart, and you feel the fast flush of perspiration lining your collar and sticking to your just-pressed shirt.   
  
The answer is simple, but nearly impossible to perform, as most true answers tend to be. And yet it is the answer, the one she's looking for, the best and most likely the only answer you'll be able to come up with. So you wipe off your damp forehead with your equally-damp hand, straighten your tie, and leave for work.  
  
******  
  
The list has been delivered to your desk, neatly sorted and organized and broken down by continents, just as you asked for it to be. No one else dares to touch it; no one risks using the intel, because it's tainted, dangerous, no matter how valuable it might be. It's a sign of your credulity, vanity perhaps, that you're willing to use it, and you know there must be whispers behind your back, people suggesting other reasons, because some of them have been around long enough to remember. Gossip may grow old, but it never dies.   
  
Some of them say it's a sign you're still in love.   
  
You pick a name off the list, almost at random. It's not quite that way -- you choose a location that will be difficult to secure, a place where anyone might slip in and out unnoticed. If you're going on a suicide mission, you might as well go all the way.   
  
You pick an artifact from the CIA's ever-growing Rambaldi collection. This too is almost at random, except that you're careful to select an item small enough to conceal easily and recent enough that word might not be out that it's now the property of the CIA.   
  
You gather the information at your desk and sit down at the computer, accessing the email account given to you. You make an offer, suggest a location.   
  
You slug back another cup of truck-stop coffee and hit send. Every fiber of your body winds tight with the tension, praying that your answer is the right one.  
  
******  
  
Hong Kong was most certainly the wrong choice. Besides the memories it contains, there's the powerful heat that presses down on every surface, soaking through your oxford and your nicest pants, no matter how much bottled water you down, making you wonder how much longer you can take it.   
  
At least you have an excuse for breaking into a cold sweat when the time comes.   
  
You're sitting a little too casually in a stiff metal chair in a bare room that must have once been an office. The indoor/outdoor carpet and crooked whiteboard hanging along one wall suggest a western company, and the tiny window opening only to a putrid alley suggests a none-too-profitable one. You entered through the only door half an hour ago and let it snap shut behind you, flimsy grey-painted metal and an even flimsier tension lock the only thing between you and whatever waits on the other side. You took a seat in the stiff-backed metal chair and laid a small black object, no larger than a glasses case, on the table before you.   
  
At precisely 10:06, the metal door handle turns, scraping roughly against the frame. Every muscle tenses and you lean forward, careful to keep your hands resting casually on the tabletop and an unconcerned expression on your face.   
  
Your contact enters the room, just as scheduled, greedy eyes glittering at the sight of the Rambaldi artifact. A few perfunctory pleasantries, a wire transfer, and he's on his way out the door.   
  
You settle back into the flimsy chair with something like a sigh of relief. You'd been waiting for that metal door to swing open and Sloane to step in, guns blazing, and the alternative (a round, balding Asian man who looks more like a bureaucrat than any of your colleagues) leaves you a little stunned and, truth be told, a little let down.   
  
The gunshot rips through the air and you have your Beretta out of the holster before the sound stops ringing in your ears, kicking over the chair in your urgency to get to the door. You line up beside it, gun ready, waiting for whatever's about to come through that door.   
  
When the door moves, you jump and aim all at the same time, and it takes every bit of self-control you have not to lay on the trigger right then. Thank goodness you didn't.   
  
Because yet again, you're holding a gun to the forehead of Sydney Bristow.   
  
"Put the gun down, Vaughn."  
  
She manages to keep still this time, but as soon as you pull the barrel away, she crosses to the table, slapping down the small black case. You swallow, but don't bother to lower the gun. There's still a ring of condensation around the tip where it contacted her warm forehead.   
  
"We had a team waiting outside. Weiss was going to recover it."  
  
She twitches her shoulders in what you guess is passing for a shrug. "Tell Weiss he can take the rest of the day off."  
  
"That's not funny, Sydney. A man just died out there."   
  
She cocks an eyebrow at you. "How do you know he died?"  
  
"Are you telling me he didn't?" You want to double over and throw up all over her boots. Who exactly was she shooting?  
  
"I'm telling you that Wen Yu was a known terrorist and an interrogation expert. He's hired himself out to FTL, K-directorate, SD-10, Kasinau, anyone who had the money. He makes our friend the dentist look like Santa Claus. He's better off dead to the CIA, and I don't see why you should care about how."  
  
Now you really want to retch over that floor. Who the hell is she?   
  
"And you would do that? Just murder someone, in cold blood?"  
  
"He pulled his gun first, if it matters." She hops up on the table as she says this, perching on the edge, feet dangling just a little.   
  
"It _does_ matter, and I can't believe you wouldn't remember that."  
  
"I seem to have forgotten a lot of things." She tilts her head to one side as she says this, a challenge. You don't take the bait.   
  
"Why did you bring that back to me?"  
  
"Who says you're leaving the room with it?" _Touche._  
  
"What if I did?"  
  
"Then the CIA would keep this little artifact in its collection. I'm sure Kendall will be very proud of you." She uses the tone you would expect if she were patting the head of a five-year-old.   
  
"And that wouldn't disturb you? To let the CIA have this?"  
  
Her eyes narrow. "I'm not in this race, this – whatever it is – for Rambaldi. I'd be just as happy to see it all blown to pieces."  
  
"Then why do you work for Irina Derevko?" The bitter tone is back again; you can't seem to keep it out.   
  
She smiles, the tight, brittle smile she keeps giving you. "Why do you think I work for her?"  
  
"I'm not playing this game."  
  
"Then put the gun down."  
  
The absurdity of the situation dawns on you, standing here in the doorway holding a gun on her and carrying on a conversation as if nothing about it is unusual. The worst part of it is that you've been so intent on her you haven't even bothered to keep the sights trained properly. You drop the gun slowly to your side, suddenly feeling sheepish.   
  
"I don't really care who ends up with Rambaldi's work, as long as it isn't Sloane. Nobody can be trusted with this; no one is going to use it for the right thing. Not Sloane, not my mother, not K-directorate, and definitely not the CIA."  
  
"And yet you're giving it back to me?"  
  
"Call it a good faith gesture."  
  
You start to make a move toward the black case and freeze in mid-step, realizing too late it's a move toward her as well. You've never quite mastered those.   
  
She senses your hesitation and holds out the black case, arm straight and rigid, as if she were pointing a finger. You reach out and slide it from her hand, fingertips brushing fingertips, slight, forbidden, electric. The way it always was.  
  
"You should leave." She speaks quietly, tone matter-of-fact. For once, you agree with her. You take a step back.   
  
"I didn't mean this room."  
  
Your eyes or your forehead must betray your confusion, because she actually makes an effort to clarify. "I mean this life. You should leave it; find a job that doesn't threaten to get you killed and a wife who won't leave you. Someone who's good for you." (_Not someone like me_, you're both thinking.)  
  
"I believe in what I do. If I didn't, I wouldn't be here."  
  
She shakes her head, something like sadness showing in her dark eyes. "This life will take away what you have, empty you. It turns you dark, makes you bitter. Look at our parents. Look at my father and Kendall and Sloane. That's who we become. That's how we end up."  
  
You shake your head, slowly. Your chest contracts, breath whooshing out of you like a punch to the lungs. You've loved this woman and feared this woman and hated this woman and, never, not once, has it struck you to pity her. But that's what you feel now, for this stiff, brittle, dark figure in front of you. Pity.  
  
"It's not how we _have_ to end up," you say softly. _It's not how_ you _have to end up, Sydney_, is what you mean, but you can't quite form the words.   
  
She smiles, the way she does so often lately, a flick of the lips that manages to be both sad and bitter, and not in the least humorous. She looks at the floor.   
  
She raises her eyes, but never high enough to meet yours, as she slides off the table and crosses to the door, brushing past you as if the meeting is over. She leaves you talking to her back.  
  
"I have an answer to your question."  
  
She freezes, muscles tensing, and you would be smirking, except for the rush of your blood and the pound of your heart and the sudden clammy perspiration on your hands.   
  
"What?" Her voice is guarded, cautious, as she slowly turns around to face you.  
  
"Yes."  
  
She blinks. Twice.  
  
"Yes?"   
  
You don't repeat yourself: she heard you the first time. You just meet her dark eyes and watch it sink in.   
  
"How can you be sure?" You hear it, and your stomach jumps right up into your throat. The tremor in her voice, the softness – how long has it been since she's spoken that way to you? To anyone?  
  
"I can't be sure. But, if I have a choice, I choose to trust you."  
  
She blinks again, drawing a hand across her face to brush away some unseen hair.   
  
"What makes you think that's even possible, after…" she trails off, looking for the word, one word that will sum up the hell the last five years have been. She simply ends with, "…after."  
  
She's done it now. Your heart catches and your breath hitches and you're suddenly trying to control the blood rushing to your face and the sweat rushing to your hands. So, naturally, you open your mouth and let the first thing you think of tumble right out.  
  
"Because a long time ago, Irina Derevko took away the person I loved most. I won't let her do it again."  
  
Shit. Great one, Vaughn. You finally grow the balls to use the "L" word with Sydney Bristow and you spit it out like a gawking fourteen-year-old while you're standing in an empty office with a dead body down the hall. Way to go. Way to go.  
  
Before you can open your mouth again and dig yourself in deeper, she does the one thing you never expected, the one thing you've never been quite sure how to handle.   
  
Sydney Bristow is crying.  
  
She just stands there, staring at you, tears streaming down her face and hand resting on the doorknob. And when you see her, now, in this moment, you see the woman you remember standing there, the woman who could kick your ass one minute and cry on your shoulder the next, the woman who could go from steely professional to laughing friend in just a second, the woman who could always, always make you happy, just by smiling back. This is not Sydney Bristow, the criminal, daughter of Irina Derevko and ruthless professional. This is Sydney, the woman, the same one you fell in love with seven years ago. _Your_ Sydney.  
  
But she's acting like the Sydney Bristow you know now. Because before you have a chance to get over the shock of seeing her this way, to remember whatever eloquent phrase you're expected to throw out next, she wheels around on her heel, all business, ignoring the tears in her eyes.   
  
She's gone.


	6. Six

The biggest problem of all is that you have no idea when you're going to see her again. Ironic, because between all the gunslinging and finger-pointing and artifact-stealing and blurting-out-that-you-love-her, the thing you're really worried about is when or if (it's the "if" that really kills you) you're going to see her again.  
  
You check your mail every day with a constricting throat and pounding heart, and after you're done with it you go back over every envelope, checking for irregularities or codes or watermarks, anything that would tell you she's out there and trying to contact you. You show up half an hour early to your Tuesday movie and buy an extra-large greasy popcorn, but only a kid-size drink, because you don't want to leave the theater in the middle, because you don't want to miss her. You sit in the low-slung creaking chair until the last of the credits roll, until you're the last one remaining, and you remember why you hated the third Godfather so much in the first place.   
  
She never comes.  
  
You check the newspaper meticulously every morning, refusing to let Donovan and his teeth anywhere near it, afraid he might mar something, afraid you might miss any mark, any hint, anything she's left for you. As if she would do it the same way again, as if she would summon you to another dark theater. As if she would take out an ad in the personals.   
  
_SWF, criminal, seeks SWM, government agent, for blackmail, treason, death threats, possible lifelong relationship. No sanity required, emotional baggage a necessity._  
  
No, that wouldn't work, either.  
  
And so you wait.  
  
******  
  
She's standing in the middle of a shopping mall, wearing solid black, right in the middle of L.A. You blink once, certain the caffeine and late nights and herbal energy supplements have finally done it to you. And when you open your eyes again, she's gone.   
  
Then she's back. At the wide doors just outside Saks, standing half-shielded behind an overcrowded cart hawking the latest in non-botox overpriced wrinkle reduction. She walks behind the stand and out of sight, and you follow. You catch a glimpse of her on the far side of the fragrance counter, and another past the displays of shoes, and a third behind an elaborate arrangement of steak knives in housewares. You hear the click of a heel and see a flick of dark fabric around a long corner leading to the ladies' rooms, and heaven help you, you follow. You're down a long hall and around a sharp curve and breaking into a jog, not caring whether anyone sees you and your J. Crew bags charging full speed toward the ladies' room. You nearly collide with a woman in a suit before you notice that the ladies' room door is just swinging shut, but so is another one, a blank steel door along the hall that opens out onto the loading bay and that should be locked this time of day.   
  
You push your way out before the door can slam shut behind you, and before you have the chance to get your bearings, you're blindsided, slammed against the brick wall with your shopping bags falling to the ground and a knife against your neck. As if she needed that.   
  
"Were you followed?" She hisses the words out between sharp breaths, dark eyes flashing, hair sticking to her neck. _"Were you followed?"_  
  
"No." She doesn't move, knife still pressed to your throat. "No one was behind me when I entered the store and I didn't attract attention until I was beside that door. And if you were smart, you would have moved us further away from the entrance by now."   
  
She steps back, eyes still flashing, and slowly lowers the knife. "Around the corner. That way." She indicates the direction by inclining her head.   
  
You lead the way around the corner, leaving the shopping bags behind, Sydney trailing behind you, on edge as always. Once into the long, narrow alley, you turn to face her. "You're taking a huge risk by contacting me in the middle of L.A. You must have something important on your mind."  
  
You use your best tough-agent voice, but she's still standing too close to you, and it's making you nervous. You're surprised to realize she feels the same way, because she takes a step back, brushing her hair back behind one ear as she does so. Yes, this must be important.   
  
"I need to know what's in the immunity deal the CIA is offering me. I can't accept anything until I'm certain of all the terms."  
  
You stifle the urge to pump your fist in the air and break into some sort of Weiss-esque victory dance. Instead, you put on your best briefing-room voice and meet her eyes.   
  
"We can't offer you everything for nothing. You won't have to turn in your parents, but you will have to give us any information that might lead us to Sloane. You'll have to turn over your mother's contacts, especially the arms dealers. The CIA wants possession of any Rambaldi artifacts you might have in your possession—"  
  
"I don't have any."  
  
"—and you'll have to give us the location of your mother's storehouses."  
  
"She'll empty them out the moment she realizes I'm gone."  
  
"I know that, but that's what the CIA is asking for. They're adamant about it."  
  
She gives you a slight nod. "Anything else?"  
  
"You'll have to become an agent again. You'll be under tight supervision,"  
  
"Just like Sark." She says, not missing the irony.  
  
"The arrangement will be similar to Agent Sark's."  
  
"The CIA will trust me?"  
  
"The CIA will watch you. This is what I can offer you, Sydney. And don't for a minute think that deal was easy to work out. This is not a negotiation or a preliminary offer, this _is_ my offer. Now it's up to you."  
  
This is it. Your heart's in your throat and you can hardly hear over the blood rushing through your ears. She glances at the ground, and then at you, and you can see the struggle going on behind those dark eyes. Your heart starts to pound even faster, and you're mentally begging her to say what you're wanting to hear, what you've imagined her saying all along. _Vaughn, I want back in._  
  
Then she looks up, jaw set, resolve glimmering in her eyes. Her voice doesn't quaver and her gaze is steady. _Say it, Sydney. Say it._  
  
"Okay."   
  
You let out a breath you didn't even realize you were holding.  
  
"Are you sure?" You don't want to ask the question, but you need to know.   
  
She glances off to one side, then back at you. "Did you mean what you said to me last time?"  
  
You silently curse yourself, then open your mouth and give her the only answer you can.  
  
"Yes. I meant it."  
  
"Then I'm sure. Meet me next Tuesday at 11:30 at Club 1330 in Berlin. Be sure to bring anything I need to sign."  
  
You're utterly speechless. And it doesn't matter, because before you can think of a thing to say, she steps forward and shoves you back against the wall again, shoulder blades digging into the brick. She pins you in place, hands on your shoulders, but that's as agressive as she gets. She leans in slowly, tilting her head up, and she brushes her lips across yours gently, tentative and careful. You reach up to cup her face, fingertips brushing her soft hair, and ease her ever so slightly closer, returning her soft kiss, showing her the same emotion. Her lips and her skin and her hair are just as soft as the always were, and you've already forgotten everything except the feel of her lips on yours and having her close, so close, with the same electricity that's always been there.   
  
She pulls away slowly, hands still resting on your shoulders, reluctant to let you go. You run your fingers back along her cheekbones, brushing the hair away from her face and smoothing it behind her ears, tracing your fingers down her neck as you slowly pull away.   
  
"I'll see you Tuesday," she says, softly, dimples denting her cheeks as she smiles.   
  
She turns on one heel and disappears around the corner, and you sag back against the wall, glad to have something to hold you upright, and wonder for the thousandth time what the hell you've been doing for the last five years.


End file.
